CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Competing in an international sporting event such as the 2014 Gay Games is challenge enough. Imagine facing those rigors after decades of culinary indulgence.

Bob Sferra played football in college. He says he used to run up and down flights of stairs without blinking.

"I've been pretty much an athlete since I was a kid," Sferra says.

He's also a chef. No matter how fitness-minded an individual may be, the culinary world is rife with temptations. Particularly for a professional caterer who stages luxury events and earns his daily bread by baking cakes and other indulgent treats.

Chefs with chubby cheeks may be the stereotype, but they're not necessarily the norm. Working with a progression of personal trainers Sferra has been back on the fitness bandwagon -- admittedly, on-and-off -- these past five years.

But early last year, as Sferra looked down the road towards his 50th birthday, he made himself a promise.

He would compete in Gay Games 9. In the triathlon, no less. Tougher than it sounds? You don't know the half of it, Sferra says.

"For about these past 20 years, the idea of exercise and healthy eating kind of came and went," Sferra says. "Sometimes I was on it; sometimes I was off it. And when you're NOT doing it, that's the hardest time to get back on the horse."

But as he made the decision to get himself back into shape and face his 50th birthday renewed, Sferra saw it as a unique occasion.

"It will be the biggest LGBT event in Greater Cleveland that I'll see in my lifetime," says Sferra, who has been openly gay for the past two decades and has served as a board member for the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland for the past six years.

A new trainer and a new gym set him in the right direction. So did ongoing training with a good friend who had participated in a previous Gay Games. They've practiced trial runs in the three key events: swimming, biking and running.

"The gym part, you get used to it. But running and lifting, and different TRX [a form of muscle suspension training] exercises my trainer is having me doing, and a lot of free weights -- that's the tough part," Sferra says.

What, and how, he eats has played a big role in his personal transformation.

"Really I don't 'count calories,'" Sferra says. "Primarily it's portion control more than anything else. I have a good breakfast every day -- cereal and fruit -- and I'm a sandwich-for-lunch guy: usually a turkey sandwich, pretty simple. And a fairly big dinner. Maybe I eat about eight ounces of protein three days a week; other days it's probably less than that -- but there's also always a salad, a vegetable, and some kind of grain or legumes."

Summer makes his food choices that much easier. Sferra and his partner of 20 years, Cleveland Clinic chairman of general surgery Matt Walsh, are actively involved in the Hampshire Road Community Garden in Cleveland Heights.

"Right now, I can eat an entire meal from what I'm growing, or a trip to the farmers market. Tomatoes, fillet beans [a variety somewhere between conventional green beans and haricots verts], chard, beets, Brussels sprouts, arugula, lettuce -- that's basically dinner, right now. There might be a burger or a piece of salmon involved."

(See accompanying story for Chef Sferra's tips for streamlining your own diet.)

Keeping active, beyond actual physical workouts, factors in, he adds.

"I should actually preface by saying that being a caterer and running a retail business, I'm constantly on the move. Constantly," he says with a rueful chuckle.

Although he operates Bob Sferra Culinary Occasions and runs The Better Occasions Shop, a specialty bakery at 4261 Mayfield Road, South Euclid, the chef spent years behind the scenes in prominent local restaurants. From 1990 to 1997, he was one of the original crew at Parker Bosley's landmark, Parkers, first on St. Clair Avenue, then in Ohio City. Later stints included the Inn at Turner's Mill in Hudson, The Harp in Cleveland, and the Viking Culinary Arts Center at Legacy Village in Lyndhurst. He's been catering for eight years.

Dramatic weight loss was never his goal -- and his efforts don't translate vividly on the scale. The 5-feet-8-inch tall chef started out at 225 pounds and is now 212.

"But my body is much different," Sferra says. "I feel a LOT better. It's easier to get around. Movement and flexibility is much different -- and my stamina is much [greater]. You literally feel like you're not carrying a backpack on the front.

"I don't look tremendously different, but when your pants fit and you don't have to make any adjustments -- well, that's remarkable."

By the way, Sferra says he doesn't let his personal dietary habits influence what's on the menu for retail and private customers.

"What we offer in the shop is traditional butter-cream-sugar indulgences," Sferra says. Though he gladly customizes menus to suit the client's desires, he says he always differentiates between treats and everyday eating.

"I don't eat a lot of what we make. I'll taste it as we go. I'll cater a party, but I don't sit down and eat a big plate. You're just not that interested in eating something you've been working on all day long."

A small bite of a brownie is plenty to satisfy any cravings, he adds.

"The more cream cheese frosting you make, the less you want to eat it. You think of the effects of it. And honestly, the temptation eventually goes away -- well, 90 percent [of the temptation] anyway."

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